Philadelphia City Controller Alan Butkovitz released an audit Wednesday that makes the school district look a little frazzled.

He says his team found that the district owed past employees more than $5 million in unclaimed compensation as of last June. Some of those workers left the city’s schools as long as 10 years ago. He also claims that school officials don’t know what happened to hundreds of TransPasses, which are provided to students to use to travel to school on public transit. “During a one-week sampling of TransPass activity at five different schools, school personnel could not account for 230 of the passes valued at $4,200,” a press release from his office reads.

Last year, just 13 TransPasses could not be accounted for in the Controller’s audit. Read more »

The City Controller’s Officer argues that 8,100 jobs are possible at Southport.

What should we do with Southport? The 239-acre parcel at the east end of the Philadelphia Navy Yard has been the topic of much debate over the years. Now that a plan is in place to deepen the Delaware River from 40 to 45 feet — allowing larger cargo ships to pass through — it’s high time to get the space in order.

In the latest re-development plan, the Philadelphia Regional Port Authority has received 16 proposals for development and is reviewing the plans.

If so, you’re not alone. In the last two years, a whopping 80,000 households in Philadelphia have not had their trash collected on time on any given week, according to a new report by City Controller Alan Butkovitz.

City Controller Alan Butkovitz has an ambitious plan to bolster the city’s manufacturing sector: Get anchor businesses like hospitals and colleges to buy local.

If they did buy medical supplies, refrigeration equipment or office supplies from local firms, it would create 1,250 new manufacturing jobs in the city, according to a new report issued from Butkovitz’s office. It even says that such a plan would generate 4,000 indirect jobs and have a total economic impact of $292 million for Philadelphia.

Questionable goings-on in L&I land again? It depends on whom you ask. According to the Inquirer’s Alfred Lubrano, the Department of Licenses and Inspections allowed nine “inexperienced and uncertified inspectors” to conduct “around 600 inspections of unsafe buildings in a single week last month.” Adding to the murky affair, each of the nine newbies “then recorded their work in L&I’s database under the name of another man, an experienced inspector with the agency.”

Could this be a symptom of the department’s desperate attempt to stay on top in an ocean of bureaucratic, financial and/or managerial issues? Maybe. But the department already has a less than stellar reputation (even City Controller Alan Butkovitz has critiqued L&I as being neglectful when it comes to inspecting unsafe buildings in a timely manner), so why this now? “This story is built on a host of unnamed speakers, who raise a host of safety and legal issues that are completely without merit,” said Commission Carlton Williams in an email to Property. He went on to explain the process:

“There is no excuse for putting lives at risk due to deteriorating and collapsing buildings,” said Butkovitz today at a press conference announcing his findings. “The city cannot wait until another tragic incident happens to stimulate action.” Read more »

Ken Trujillo shocked the city’s political class Wednesday when he announced that he was withdrawing from the mayoral race. You may be wondering: Why does it matter that a guy who few voters had heard of dropped out? A few reasons.